IDP Not Being Followed Wales: What to Do When Your Child's Provision Isn't Delivered

An Individual Development Plan that isn't being delivered is not just a disappointment — it's a legal breach. In Wales, once an IDP is finalized and signed, the body that maintains it (the school or the local authority) has a statutory duty to secure and deliver every piece of Additional Learning Provision written into it. Ignoring that duty has consequences, and parents have real levers to pull.

Here's how to force delivery when provision isn't happening.

Why IDPs Are Ignored (and Why the Excuse Doesn't Hold)

The most common explanations you'll hear:

• "We don't have a trained member of staff available"
• "The specialist is on a waiting list"
• "Budget constraints mean we can't deliver this term"
• "We're working on it — it will start next half-term"

None of these are lawful reasons to fail to deliver provision that is written into a statutory IDP. The ALN Act 2018 and the ALN Code are unambiguous: once ALP is specified in a finalized IDP, the maintaining body has a legal duty to secure it. The Tribunal and the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales have both confirmed that resource or staffing shortages do not constitute a valid defence.

This matters because the distinction between "we disagree about what provision your child needs" (an ETW issue) and "we agree on what's in the IDP but aren't delivering it" (an Ombudsman issue) determines which complaints route you use.

Step 1: Document Everything

Before you write any letters, build your evidence. For at least two to four weeks, keep a daily log of:

• Which sessions were supposed to happen (date, time, type of provision, delivering staff member as specified in the IDP)
• Which sessions actually happened
• Which sessions were cancelled, shortened, or delivered by unqualified staff
• Any verbal statements from school staff explaining why provision isn't happening

Specific, dated records are far more powerful than a general complaint that "the school isn't doing what the IDP says." You need to be able to show: "On [dates], the IDP required 3 hours of 1:1 specialist reading support per week. In that period, only [X hours] was delivered."

Step 2: Write Formally to the ALNCo and Headteacher

Put your concern in writing to the school's ALNCo, with a copy to the headteacher. Your letter should:

• Identify the specific ALP that is not being delivered (quote directly from Section 2B of the IDP)
• Note the dates and sessions where delivery has not occurred
• State that the school has a statutory duty under the ALN Act 2018 to secure this provision
• Request written confirmation within 10 working days of when full delivery will resume and what has caused the shortfall

Request a copy of the school's monitoring records for your child's provision. Schools are required to monitor delivery of ALP — if they cannot produce these records, that itself is significant.

Step 3: Escalate to the LA

If the school's response is inadequate — or if they fail to respond — write to the local authority's ALN team. For school-maintained IDPs, the LA has the power to intervene, take over maintenance of the IDP, or direct the school to comply.

In your letter to the LA:

• Enclose your correspondence with the school and their response (or non-response)
• Enclose your evidence log
• Request that the LA use its statutory powers to ensure the school delivers the ALP as written

Step 4: Complain to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales

If the LA fails to act, or if this is an LA-maintained IDP and the LA itself is the one not delivering, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW) has jurisdiction.

The PSOW investigates maladministration and service failure by public bodies. Failing to deliver provision already specified in a statutory IDP is exactly the kind of failure the Ombudsman handles. The ETW, by contrast, cannot help here — the ETW decides on the merits of ALN decisions and IDP content, not on delivery failures.

Before the PSOW will accept your complaint, you must have exhausted the LA's internal complaints procedure. Write to the LA's complaints team formally, attach your evidence, and allow the statutory response time. If their response is unsatisfactory, the PSOW is your next step.

If the PSOW upholds your complaint, it can order the LA to:

• Put proper delivery mechanisms in place immediately
• Pay financial compensation reimbursing you for private therapies you funded during the period of non-delivery

When the IDP Itself Is the Problem

Sometimes the reason provision isn't being delivered is that the IDP is so vague that the school can argue it has technically met its obligations with minimal effort. "Access to support" has been delivered if a teaching assistant walked past your child's desk.

If the provision language in your IDP is ambiguous — not specifying hours, frequency, or staff qualifications — you have a different problem. The solution is not an Ombudsman complaint but an IDP challenge through the LA reconsideration or ETW appeal route. An ambiguous IDP is legally unenforceable no matter how many complaints you file.

The Wales ALN Dispute Playbook walks through how to audit your child's IDP against the "quantified and specific" legal standard, identify vague language, and choose the right escalation route — whether that's the Ombudsman or the Tribunal. Get the full toolkit at /uk/wales/advocacy/.

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